


The Ongoing Misadventures of Two Dead Angels

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Balthazar (Supernatural) Lives, Buddy comedy, Gabriel Lives, Gen, Misbehaving Angels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-18 20:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10624791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: The last thing the world needs is an archangel with an unlimited appetite for mischief, and an equally sneaky angel, with impeccable taste and a penchant for stealing something valuable and faking his own death, to encourage him. But they would probably have some great stories to tell.





	1. Mischief Unmanageable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dmsilvisart](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Dmsilvisart).



> A request for unmanaged mischief. This story will periodically update, with the same reliability as can be expected of an archangel trickster and his undeniably classy, roguish buddy. Subscribe if you'd like a notification when these two dead recurring characters resurface from time to time to wreak their special brand of havoc.

“What's the matter, Cassie? You look like you're about to smite something.”

“Gabriel,” the seraph snarled. 

“In the grace,” he confirmed grandly. 

Balthazar snorted. “The colloquialism is ‘in the flesh,’ I believe.”

Gabriel sent him an exasperated look. “In someone's flesh,” he amended. “I don't have my own.”

Castiel’s eyes shone with deep emotion which his old friend could not quite identify. “Balthazar,” he breathed. “You're alive!”

The angel hummed in annoyance. “No thanks to you, Cassie. But you weren't quite the you I remember from our cherubhood at the time, now were you? A bit obsessed with Uncle Raphie at the moment.”

Those blue eyes had never hid sadness the way they should have. “I had to complete my mission, Balthazar. Raphael would have restarted the apocalypse, and the humans-”

“Oh, boring,” Gabriel complained. “That was so six seasons ago.”

Castiel turned to him and seemed to be doing mental math. “But it's been-”

The archangel waved him away. “Trust me. Six seasons. No one can keep up with how many years, what with Hell and Purgatory and death.”

“He's dead.”

“Is he?” Gabriel snapped. “Because so am I as far as Lucifer knows. And so are you, and everyone we know. You can't kill Death, you dumbass. You and your posse just destroyed that incarnation.” Then he turned to his companion. “Heh. Posse.”

Balthazar smirked and sipped at his scotch. “Very classy.”

“Why do you always call him Uncle Raphie anyway? We're brothers. He was an infinitely more powerful and pretentious brother. But still a brother.”

Balthazar raised an eyebrow. “He once referred to himself as a benevolent patron of the little, unrefined soldier angels. I found that sufficiently condescending to begin referring to him instead as the creepy uncle.”

Castiel cringed. “Oh, I remember that. That was quite insulting. Even Michael was annoyed by that.”

Gabriel let out a snicker. “Raph always had a way of endearing himself to the working class.”

“It was a fine recruiting point in the war against him,” Castiel admitted. “And how did the two of you survive the End Times and those that followed? Sam Winchester gleaned from his time as Lucifer’s vessel that he had killed you when you defied him. And, my old friend, I burned out your wings myself, as surely as Anna did Uriel's.”

“Did you? I don’t recall,” Balthazar snapped bitterly. 

Castiel's eyes lowered. “You sought to betray our mission.”

“I sought to bring you back from the edge of delusion!”

“Our mission has always been protection of those who cannot and would not protect themselves! The humans, Balthazar! Yes, I went off the reservation, as my dear friends say, but I was wrong for the right reason. I have atoned for what came after, but I will not apologize for doing what I had to do in order to destroy Raphael and keep the other Firstborns locked away! The humans…” Castiel drew in a shuddered breath. “The humans had given everything to prevent the burning of their world. I couldn't let it be for nothing. They each suffered in Hell, one to break the first seal, and one to fix that he broke the last one. They were manipulated by Heaven from long before their birth. The least I could do was let their heroism stand. They didn't agree with my methods, no one did, but I don't recall that we had any other options.” He turned to glower at Gabriel. “Certainly there was no one out there who possessed the power of an archangel, who might have helped.”

At last, Gabriel's expression changed to that of a child being chastised. “Oops.”

Castiel noticed that even Balthazar rolled his eyes at that. “Really? That's your response?”

“Oops, I did it again?”

The other two angels stared at him. 

“You boys need more pop culture in your lives.”

Balthazar shook his head. “No. I have entirely too much of that now that I'm flying with you,” he retorted. 

Castiel sighed, and he could feel his battered wings lowering from their defensive stance to slump in weariness. “Where have the two of you been?”

His old garrison buddy smiled. “Ever since my traveling companion generously caught my grace spilling out all over Creation and shoved it all back into this beautiful vessel and plugged the hole in my back up,” he said wryly, “we've been everywhere.”

Gabriel grinned. “Care to hear about the ongoing misadventures of two dead angels?”

“Two dead angels.” Balthazar clarified, “one with impeccable taste and the other with an unlimited capacity for mischief?”

“Unless you've got something else going on,” Gabriel snorted, as if he couldn't imagine any such thing. 

Castiel smiled grimly. “Other than searching the world over for the spawn of Lucifer which would truly make Raphael an uncle post-mortem? No. Certainly nothing going on.”

Balthazar raised an eyebrow with some concern, but Gabriel's grin widened. “Excellent! We’ll deal with my cute little nephilim nephew later. It's big brother's story time!”

“Yay,” Castiel intoned blandly, earning himself a disturbingly identical wink from his brothers.


	2. Archangels Get Bored Quickly

Gabriel would never get tired of sugar, porn or crude humor. Unfortunately, his traveling companion tired of all three far too quickly, and dragged him to boring places. 

“I want to go!”

Balthazar did not bother looking at him. “Then go. I'm staying.”

“I should have saved Malachi,” Gabriel sulked. He took out his gum and placed it on the back of a frame. 

“The anarchist? He was a psychopath.”

“But probably more fun than you,” he shot back. “Come on! I'm bored!”

At last, he turned to sigh. “Brother, this is some of the most impressive art the humans have to offer. You're at The Louvre, mon cher. Have some respect.”

Gabriel glanced back at the abandoned gum, and shrugged. “It's very cool. Can we go now?”

“You can go anytime you like.”

“Tyrus. He could've been fun. A little sporty, but that's better than artsy.”

“Tyrus is dead too?”

“Castiel has been a busy boy.”

Balthazar smiled to himself. “Did he really kill Malachi?”

“I think it was Gadreel? I don't know. All you soldier types look the same to me.”

But his companion didn't take the bait. He continued to stare up at the painting opposite the one with the gum on it. 

Gabriel sighed. Then an idea came to him, and he began to smile. “What wine pairs with éclairs?”

The sparkle in Balthazar's eyes said he was finally getting somewhere. “Probably a moscato. But have you had a lavender martini? Because I haven't. And it sounds delightful.”

The snap of Gabriel's fingers was becoming a familiar and welcome sound. An instantaneous flight later, they grinned at one another from across a table outside a French night club, where two beautiful women were smiling at them. 

“That it?” Gabriel said. 

Balthazar looked down and nodded. He lifted the martini glass and sniffed at it. “The humans have often been hopelessly wrong. But they make up for it with intoxicants and art.”

“I feel the same way about Casa Erotica,” Gabriel confirmed in a reverent tone. He lifted his own bright pink cocktail and saluted his brother with it. “To our continuing story.”

Balthazar clinked his glass against Gabriel's gently. “To our lovely new friends,” he added, making the women giggle breathlessly. 

“To forgetting the past,” Gabriel murmured. 

“What's that?”

He turned on his charismatic grin again. “To humans and their art,” he said quickly. 

Balthazar was too busy getting the ladies’ names to notice when Gabriel closed his whiskey eyes for a moment, and threw back most of his cocktail in one gulp.


	3. The Con Mistake

“I have some concerns.”

Gabriel looked up. “Is it the makeup? Yes, you're a painted whore. Deal.”

Balthazar shook his head. “Oddly, I don't mind the cosmetics, though I don't see why they're necessary. What I wonder about is the real Roché character.”

“Who?”

His brother rolled his eyes dramatically. “Serge Roché. He's not a vessel. But I'm suddenly him. And that makes me wonder where he is. Or Slayed.”

“Slate. Slate the Great.” Gabriel grinned into the mirror. “Handsome fucker, give him that.”

“Yes, well, as that may be, where are they now? They're not vessels.”

“Nope. No big Dick in me.” He closed one eye in a sort of cringe. “That didn't come out right.”

“So where are they?” Balthazar insisted.

“Serge! Rich! Come on! Matty’s already here!”

“Who is-Holy Heaven, it's the prophet.”

Gabriel shook his head. “No, no. That's not Chuck. How are you still struggling with this? This is a whole different universe! Hello! No angels, no demons, no prophets!”

“And you're certain you can get us back to our universe?”

“Rich!” In ran the man who looked disturbingly like the prophet Chuck, who the two angels had never encountered personally, but who was etched into their programming, just like every other angel. “Rich, the band has been playing for ten minutes. Are you coming or what?”

Gabriel smirked. “Not right this minute. But maybe tonight, if I can get a little help from my friends.” His eyebrows wiggled.

“What are you even saying right now?” Balthazar hissed.

Not-Chuck stared at him. “Um, okay. Sex jokes. Low bar, but whatever. Matt’s tearing me up out there, and I could totally use a little backup, right?”

“I'm Serge Roché,” Balthazar said quickly.

“Uh, yeah. Look, guys, is this some sort of prank? Because I'm seriously going to need-Wait, Rich, are you drunk? Is that what this is? I thought-”

Gabriel waved him away. “I'm awesome. I'm amazing. I'm Slate the Great!”

“Nobody...nobody actually calls you that.”

“Of course they do! I saw myself on Tweebler! I'm the King of this world!”

Not-Chuck blinked. “Okay.” He looked at Balthazar. “So he's pissed. Awesome. You know, I used to be an actor. Like a real actor.”

“Is he still bitching?” A woman with cropped, spiked hair wandered toward them, with a cigarette in one hand and a liquor bottle in the other. “One night without Rob bitching.”

Balthazar stared at her. “You are positively stunning,” he remarked.

Gabriel snorted. “Dibs.”

The woman let her eyes widen. “I'm sorry. Did you just say dibs? Did you just say dibs? Or am I fucking hearing things? Because I'm fucking Sue, and you know I will kick your ass.”

Gabriel's grin widened. He took a step toward her. “She reminds me of a destroyer goddess I dated once.”

“You heard her. She’s fucking a woman named Sue. Be a gentleman, Gabr-Rich. Have some class.”

“I have class,” Gabriel insisted. He smirked at Sue. “And I'm ready to be schooled.”

“Guys, really, the band has been playing now for-”

“Oh, stuff it, Rob. Where's Maury? Maury!” She raised the bottle to her lips while she waited.

Balthazar flinched in disgust. “No. No, no. That's the vessel Zachariah took. This is entirely too bizarre. I want to go back to where we came from.”

“But I'm King here!” Gabriel insisted.

“Zachariah’s vessel is coming toward us. I don't care that it isn't really him. Next thing we'll see is John fucking Win-”

“Rob! I did not agree to this! I've got scripts to read. I took my shirt off for them! What else do they need? I'm out. If Rich and Serge aren't going to come take over soon, I'm charging for an extra hour, and raising the price of my autographs. It's ridiculous that Osric’s are more than mine anyway.”

Gabriel shook his head. “That man yelling from that curtain is Michael's vessel.”

“Yes he is,” Balthazar confirmed.

“I don't think I want to be in this fun house anymore.”

“Right.”

Rob threw his hands up. “Has anybody seen Justin and Jaden? This is just the biggest cluster-”

Gabriel snapped his fingers, and watched the world shift around them.

Balthazar sighed with relief. “I do appreciate your near-infinite abilities at times.”

“Yeah. Me too. This universe sucks, but at least it's not Kings of Conventional world.”

“Give me the unconventional world any day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're completely confused, just let me say that I don't take any credit for Kim Rhodes being a drunken sailor named Sue, or Matt Cohen being a jackass, or Kurt Fuller being named Maury. Kings of Con is the parody show by Richard and Rob. It's a cluster.


	4. The Race

“I'm simply stating fact,” Balthazar said with his typical tone of hauteur. “You're an archangel, but without your added powers? You would have no chance.”

Gabriel scoffed. “You think you know-”

“I know I know. And it's no true challenge. The fact is that you are not a soldier, brother. You're more...ornamental.”

His mouth dropped open now, something that had only happened once in his very long life, when he was stabbed in the gut by Lucifer, in the instant before he could warp reality and escape his fate with an illusion.

Balthazar sniffed and sipped at his crystal tumbler, with a smirking eyebrow.

“Ornamental!” he barked. “Michael would have cracked your vessel like an egg for that!”

“Ah,” Balthazar returned, with a raised finger. “But Michael was a warrior. There is no doubt that, even if he had been created as a celestial of my own rank, he would have been a formidable opponent. But you…”

Gabriel could feel his vessel’s face heating in vexation. “I'm not Michael. Nobody's Michael.”

“Not even Michael,” Balthazar remarked.

He scowled darkly. “And I'm far smarter, of course.”

“Not like Raphael, perhaps, but certainly.”

His grace was beginning to boil. “And I'm objectively beautiful.”

“Not like Lucifer. But surely.”

Whiskey brown eyes flashed blue in annoyance. “But I am not ornamental!”

The wrath of an archangel should have sent a lesser celestial into a trembling petulance. But Balthazar simply shrugged and continued to drink. “Like a cherub. Respectfully.”

“A cherub!”

“Except that they do things. So actually more ornamental than a cherub.”

He threw his hands into the air. “I do things!”

“Such as?”

Gabriel considered ripping off that stupid, judgmental eyebrow. He ground his vessel’s teeth. “Things,” he insisted.

Balthazar nodded. “Right. Brother, you're the angel on all the Christmas trees, blowing a horn. You're literally an ornament. You talk. It's what you do. You spoke with Mary, with Mohammad, with-”

“I can do more than talk!”

His brother put down his glass and stood to stretch his arms above his head. Gabriel thought he looked like a cat. And a jerk. “Not without your heightened powers,” he said in that conceited voice.

“That's it. You and me. Right now.”

Balthazar laughed. “Again, you're an archangel-”

“So I'll use a governor on my engine!” he snarled. “Nothing you can't do! But I'll do it better and faster.”

His friend snorted. “Set the terms. I'm game to win if you are to lose. We shall need a judge.”

Gabriel snapped his fingers, and glared at Balthazar smugly. “A referee.”

Castiel sighed in irritation. “What am I meant to referee?”

“A race, brother,” Balthazar explained.

“A race!” He rolled his eyes. “I'm very busy-”

“Shut up. This will literally only take a minute.”

“Fine. What are the rules? If I am to referee-”

“No archangel powers,” Balthazar rushed. “He's promised not to use any ability I haven't got.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “Then there's no race,” he pointed out. “You've trained for speed and combat our whole lives. Gabriel's not a soldier. He's more…”

“Ornamental! I know. That's what I said.”

“Gabriel, I'm afraid I don't understand. With your elevated rank and power, Balthazar cannot hope to win. Without it, you cannot. What is the point?”

“The point is that you're both wrong! Shut up. Round the northern pole, then the southern, and back here to Cassie. True flight, not just teleportation crap. Got it, hotshot?”

“Oh, I am quite ready.”

“Then let's light this candle!”

Balthazar smiled and tipped his head to let his vessel's neck crack a little. It made Gabriel wonder if perhaps he should have stretched his own vessel, though he couldn't imagine why that might be necessary. “Cassie?” his opponent called in a tone of boredom, which was betrayed by the sparkling, mischievous blue eyes.

Castiel gave an ever-suffering sigh. “Well? Go!”

Gabriel tore into flight, and felt his opponent doing the same. He couldn't remember the last time he had bothered to stretch his wings in this way. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. Now that he thought of it, had he ever flown such a distance on his actual wings before?

As they neared the first magnetic pole, Gabriel could feel that the two angels were nearly one bird, neither more than a foot ahead of the other at any moment. But when they rounded and began heading south again, dread seeped into Gabriel's vessel.

Balthazar wasn't at his top speed like he was. The realization made his stomach drop, and his wings even faltered for an instant before he could balance. Balthazar was pacing himself for the distance, which Gabriel had not thought to do. As an archangel, he should not have felt the strain in the slightest, but he had promised to govern himself, and that included allowing himself to get winded without renewing his own strength through abilities Balthazar did not have.

By the turn of the southern pole, Gabriel was beginning to fall behind by ten feet or worse. He could feel the proximity of Castiel, near the Equator, and he pushed himself harder, but he knew it wouldn't be enough. Balthazar was accustomed to training, and knew how to handle distances. Michael had made his soldiers practice on wing, because that was how Heaven’s battles were fought. While Gabriel had spent eons snapping his fingers to get from one place to another, a soldier of Michael was busy relying on the strength and speed of his actual wings.

He never had a chance.

Well, was he the Trickster, or was he the Trickster? With a wink of his eye, he unleashed his second and third set of wings. In an instant, he had caught up, and even passed his shocked opponent. When he neared Castiel, he took care to hide his advantage, and landed gracefully with just one set of wings displayed.

Balthazar tumbled to a landing nearby, entirely flustered and winded.

Castiel stared. “I'm humbled to say I was wrong,” he announced. “I call the race for Gabriel.”

Balthazar grimaced, and shuffled forward contritely to pat Gabriel on the back. “Awkward,” he muttered.

Gabriel was the one to raise his eyebrow now.

“I apologize. You're clearly far stronger than I anticipated.”

The archangel shrugged. “That's all right. I'm okay with being ornamental. I'm objectively beautiful, and definitely the cleverest. Why would anyone ever make an ornament out of anyone other than me?”

“Your modesty astounds me,” Castiel sighed dryly. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I was doing something import-”

Gabriel's fingers snapped him away, in vaguely the same direction he had found him a few minutes ago.

Balthazar was still smiling at him in awe. “I'm impressed, brother.”

He shrugged again. “You can keep your soldier training. I know who I am. I'm Gabriel, the Trickster, and maybe I don't do much, but that's only because nobody makes me do anything.”

Balthazar grinned. “You're an inspiration, brother.”

“Aren't I?”


	5. Literary Relevance

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand that reference,” he admitted. Then he wrinkled his nose. “That sounds like something Cas would say.”

Balthazar hummed in agreement. “Maybe. But let me educate you.”

“Will there be a point to the story?”

“I suppose you’ll have to wait and see, dear brother.”

Gabriel sighed. He didn’t enjoy waiting. It taxed his patience.

But his companion was not to be hurried. “The story of Hercule Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac is a tale of an accomplished soldier and sophisticated musician, who is quite a dazzling wordsmith. I am he in this case.”

His friend made a hand gesture to indicate that Balthazar should speed up.

He sighed. “And his subordinate, one Christian de Neuvillette, who is more brash and fumbling, though admittedly somewhat endearing in his own right. That is you.”

A brown eyebrow lifted in suspicion. “Am I being insulted here? I just want to know if I’m being insulted here.”

Balthazar shrugged. “If given the choice to be a witty and intelligent, charismatic hero with a reputation for fine repartee of both words and sharp objects, I would not choose to be the clumsy and clueless ape instead.”

“I like apes.”

“And you make my point for me.”

Gabriel groaned. “I get it. You’re in possession of great charm and intellect. And you’re long-winded and look down your nose at even the smartest of the Firstborns.”

“Funnily enough, I was just about to add the part about the nose. That is where the metaphor ends, I’m afraid. I am objectively far more beautiful than you are. But let us pretend for a moment that I’m not.”

The archangel was grinding his vessel’s teeth now. “Let’s,” he agreed with a sneer.

“Cyrano was many things, and he commanded great confidence in all of them but one. His tragic flaw, for every hero must have one.”

“Dude had a messed up nose?”

Balthazar nodded. “According to most human standards, it was unacceptably large and unattractive. But that was not the flaw.”

“What then?”

“I see his sin as vanity. Because he could not abide his own unattractive feature, he condemned himself to a life of lonely regret.”

Gabriel stared at him in silence for a moment. Then he blinked into a frown. “But that’s you, right? I’m not the lonely, regretful one here.”

“No. Christian dies by gunshot before his love can ever know the true him.”

“I don’t like this story!” Gabriel cried out. “What the hell does this have to do-“

“Cyrano and Christian were in love with the same woman. She chose Christian.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Okay. Well, I was stabbed with an angel blade just after revealing the true me to Kali.”

“Yes.”

They were walking, which was a strange feature of having legs. Balthazar was always moving, somewhat stiffly. For all his mischief, the younger of the ancient beings had not lost his soldier persona entirely. It was there, beneath the conceit and cologne. Gabriel himself had more of a swagger.

“But Cyrano was the one who knew how to use words to win over Roxanne.”

Gabriel remembered that name. “Roxanne. That’s the one Romeo was bitching about. That girl gets around!”

Balthazar gave him an odd look. “No. Romeo was...That’s a different…”

“Was also the one Calvin was after. Man, I hated to see that story end. Poor guy was six years old for ten years. Poor Rosalyn babysat that child through a decade. That’s a long time for a human. And Calvin was clearly smitten with her. She would yell, and he would cringe and try to run away…” Gabriel sighed happily until he realized Balthazar had stopped walking to stare at him. “What?”

Blue eyes watched him with strange intensity. “I don’t know who Calvin is, but I think I understand your attraction to the destroyer goddess a little better.”

“Calvin! You know! And Rosalyn was the only one that could scare him, and also the only one that ever played Calvinball with him and the stuffed tiger.”

“I think we are getting off-track. I said Roxanne.”

“The one with the red light. In the song. With the dress. Is it the one with the big nose singing? I guess it would have to be. I don’t think Romeo sang, did he?”

Balthazar slapped his vessel’s palm into his vessel’s forehead for no good reason. “Yes!” he exclaimed in exasperation. “Yes! I’ll help you figure out what to say to Kali! Forget the literary references! I’ll help you! Just stop trying to figure out classic human culture!”

Gabriel smiled. “Finally! I mean, who paid any attention to that stuff? You want classics that will stand the test of cosmic time, not just a few measly human generations, you need to look into Calvin and Hobbes, my friend. Marston and Marlowe and Metatron have nothing on Bill Watterson!”

“Indeed,” his friend sighed.

“So what do I say to Kali? I was going to open with a line like, I know I haven’t been around, because I’ve been catching up on some reading. Just finished Slaughterhouse Five. I don’t mean to be Kurt, but Vonnegut some dinner?”

Balthazar physically winced at Gabriel’s panache. “Not even Cyrano could make you relevant,” he lamented.

“Good thing I’ve got you instead, huh?”

“Good thing,” his companion sighed. 


	6. The Image of an Archangel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration came from @dmsilvisart sending me one of those TextsFromTheImpala posts.

“So...sorry about the confusion with the nudes last night. That was rude.”

Balthazar simply stared at his older brother. 

Gabriel continued with a smirk. “See, there was this beautiful woman, and she gave me her number, and-“

“I truly don’t want to know.”

“But you do a little bit. So I had your number saved in favorites, and I might have had one too many Holy Cannolis, and-“

Balthazar knew better than to ask. He knew. But he asked. 

“A Holy Cannoli? It’s this lovely little cocktail I dreamed up, with vanilla vodka and cinnamon stick and rum and some other stuff I can’t quite remember right now...Anyhoo, the lady wanted my attention, so I sent her some digital heat showing off this fabulous vessel of mine.”

He lifted a brow. “Gabriel, those nudes, as you call them-“

Gabriel continued quickly. “Do you have any idea how much alcohol it takes to even get buzzed? It’s extraordinarily difficult to get me drunk. I went shot for shot with everyone in the room, then started mixing my own, and I think it was when I left the first bar, then left the club, and got to the beer place that I was talked into a keg stand.”

“Beer place? You mean another bar?”

“A party,” his brother clarified. “Somebody’s party. Not sure. Anyway, there was a lot of beer. And standing on kegs. Upside down.”

Balthazar wasn’t entirely sure what a keg stand was, but from the looks of Gabriel this morning, he didn’t want to know. “Right.”

“And then I decided I should send those photos I promised to the woman from before. But I mean, cellphones are stupid when you’re drunk. They don’t do anything the way you tell them to. And I thought I had it figured out, but it kept being stupid, then just as I was about to smite it, it sent the photos. I didn’t realize till just now that I sent them to you instead.”

Balthazar nodded. “Gabriel?”

The archangel was stretching his vessel’s arms above his head, until something popped. It seemed to surprise him, so he stopped. “What?”

“Those nudes?”

“Yeah? Hot, right?”

“They’re all of your hand. Your left hand.”

Gabriel frowned at him. “What?” he shouted. 

His brother began to laugh. “You sent me eleven photos of your left hand, and one of your chin.” He enjoyed the way the mighty archangel looked completely flummoxed by this development. But he patted him on the back. “It’s a fine chin, brother. And the hand is exquisite. I’m certain she would have been impressed.”

He bristled irritably. “Of course she would have. I’m Gabriel!”

Balthazar smiled at him fondly. “Yes, you are, brother. There’s no denying that. You are Gabriel.”


End file.
